by Tompet Games

Kevin Young, the creator of LEGENDS UNTOLD

In our second inteview we talked to Kevin Young. One of the creators of LEGENDS UNTOLD. Kevin shares some of his thoughts on early birds, stretch goals and the importance of answering people on Twitter.

Tell us a bit about yourself and Legends untold.

Inspiring Games is headed up by two people, Kevin Young and Hugh Ducker.

Kev (only his Mum calls him Kevin) is the creative one in Inspiring Games, ideas tend to spew forth at an alarming rate, many of which make sense and are perfectly simple (to Kev at any rate). Hugh is the straight man to Kev’s chaos, the Ying to his Yang etc. Hugh gets to drive a car round Kev’s head collecting tokens as he goes and then has the unenviable task of trying to translate said ideas into a cogent game design.

Legends Untold is the debut game for IG, it is our vision to take all the depth of an RPG and mix it with the speed of a card game to make a game of huge depth with mechanics optimized for speed of play.

What did you do to build up a following before you launched?

We are active participants in many Facebook Forums, in particular the UK KS Forum where I met your good self Petter. We have had many individual conversations about the game and gaming with people at the UK Games Expo and on social media.

What is your best marketing tip?

Start a conversation on Twitter. And by this I don’t mean have a bot thank you message. I replied individually to every follower for our first 600 followers. Even if only 10% of those look at your game then that can be a great start to your funding goal.

You had an amazing first 48 hours. Was that planned or did it come as an surpirse?

We had a hunch we would do well just because the feedback from the reviews was really positive. However now we are currently 5x where we thought we might be after one week.

Did you have a plan if you got a lot of backers?

Lot’s of coffee! Yes we tag team the comments section so that somebody is on shift most hours of the day (not all mind you). For us it is really important to respond to those comments, err all 1,291 of them as I write this.

If there was one thing you wish you knew before you launched? What would it be?

That you need your Audio before the Video, a long time before it!

When did you launch and why did you choose that exact moment?

Haha! We were late! We were supposed to launch at 8pm on November 15 however our voice actor had a bad cold and was late getting his audio file to the video guy to finish the video.

We eventually launched two days later and at 8pm we hit launch then the system hated us becuase of the Early Bird pledge – we had 15 minutes of complete stress and a three way transatlantic skype to fix it. People were screaming at us ‘hit the button I can’t keep refreshing’…it was not the best launch!

There are lots of opinions about early birds. It seemed that you had great success using them on your campaign. Whats your thoughts on that topic?

That putting Early Bird pledges in means you can not offer people other rewards easily down the line without using an Add On. Trying to explain why EB backers use an Add On and non EB Backers should just select a different reward takes up a lot of manpower.

For us I agree I think it was a big success but I would clarify we only make it a very modest amount £2. People are very passionate about their £2 saving and backer number but other backers get that in reality they missed out on a discount of less than a cup of coffee.

The beginning and the end of the campaign are when most of the backers pledge. Whats your main tactic to handle the mid-campaign drop?

Hussling! We have a few ideas we are trying out with a Social goal dashboard and Sprint quests in the Tour de Legends

How often do you send out updates and what do they include?

It has been crazy so far so we have only been doing update as we unlock SGs. We always try to be humble, grateful, honest and entertaining. Oh and I occasionally remember to tell the backers the facts in a succinct manner (though not often).

What is your tactic regarding stretch goals?

Interesting one – as a backer I find overuse of them a bit much so we were going to space them out much more than we have. However apparently I´m in the wrong and obsessive backers really like them. If you are not deviating from your vision and it will not wreck the project in terms of time or financials I would say you should give the backers what they want

What is the most important element of a Kickstarter page?

For our game (very thematic) a cool hook graphic. I suspect the same for others too.

What is your favourite board game and why?

Showing my age but Space Hulk (1st Edition), I just love the feeling of speed and helplessness as a marine player. We usually play one Stealer plays 5 or six Marines each with a brutal timer. Watching the chaos and stress as the terminators get in each others way is just so much fun.

Do you have any role models in the board gaming industry?

I have been very fortunate to have wonderful conversations with Ricky Royal as he asked me for clarity doing his video play throughs. The man is a gaming machine, so much passion, so much understanding and his videos are just wonderful.

Anything else you want to add?

Thank you so much for the opportunity of the interview we really appreciate it.

The campaign for Legends untold is currently on Kickstarter so please go over there and take a look at this great game. You can also check them out on Facebook.